By Bob Gibson

      What happens when news coverage of campaigns and state and local governments starts to dry up?

      Do people rely more on the paid media bought by the candidates? Do voters scour the Internet for thoughts and newsy items on blogs?

      When campaign spending increases and hard news coverage decreases, will the anything-goes atmosphere of the Wild, Wild West replace the solid scoops of news that contain attribution and two or more sides of a story?

      An inveterate political junkie, I read blogs almost daily yet often find anonymous or poorly sourced attacks, heavy on emotional opinion.

      The Virginia General Assembly, which has all 100 of its House of Delegates seats on ballots this fall, is less and less observed and reported on by major media this year as newspapers and stations from Tidewater to Northern Virginia trim back coverage.

      Where many TV stations once considered government and politics important beats to cover, fewer commit to political coverage today. Radio coverage of the state’s politics and government has fallen off as well in recent years. Luckily, Charlottesville residents receive far more coverage of their state and local governments than many other Virginians, yet the trend toward less has hit here as well.

      Newspaper coverage of the General Assembly is lighter everywhere, a sad fact also true in other states, as more papers are doing less in state capitals. Stories are shorter and many items once covered get brief mention or are ignored. Individual major daily newspapers are dying.

      Especially at a time when there is more and more money pouring into politics, fewer reporters are following the money. This trend bodes ill.

      Virginia has been a relatively clean state politically for at least the past 60 years, but when newspapers and major media cut back routine coverage of who is influencing our government to do what, then there is no guarantee the state will stay clean. What positive image there is of government can be replaced all too swiftly by the taint of Illinois on the James.
      Another sad trend is the tendency for media consumers to live in an age of designer information. We all can design our own information sources to reflect our likes and prejudices so much that opposing views are either missing or more demonized than understood. We can pick whole networks and other sources of views and news to tell us pretty much what we want to hear.

      Sarah Palin fans watched her on the like-minded Fox News. Barack Obama supporters preferred his coverage on MSNBC.

      By contrast, one example of how people can come together to share different views took place at an issue forum last September that drew about 350 people in Danville to hear from congressional candidates Virgil Goode and Tom Perriello. Most of the audience who attended came supporting one of the two candidates and enjoyed cheering their guy. Afterward, many people commented that they appreciated the chance to really listen for a couple of hours to the other side.

    Our state and nation are split down the middle into partisan camps that don’t often meet each other. They don’t read and watch the same news. It’s little wonder that both major party brands have lost some luster. The independent, or generic, political brand may be growing as Democrats or Republicans each are demonized in the eyes of those increasingly getting news from more partisan sources.

      Virginia is in play today for both political parties in statewide races and, as such, is about to attract more money than ever to influence who runs our state. Just in the past two weeks, more than $2 million was pumped into gubernatorial campaigns and partisan groups to tout one side or attack another.

      No matter who wins the June 9 Democratic primary for governor among three candidates, this will be a historically expensive and hard-hitting general election campaign with more money behind negative ads than in any previous Virginia governor’s contest. It’s likely that Republican Bob McDonnell will join the attack after Democrats Creigh Deeds, Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran finish their nomination fight. Any dirt deemed too radioactive for a campaign to throw will be tossed by other groups that might, or might not, operate independently and yet are well funded by the parties and their big donors.

      Polls show McAuliffe, a big-money magnet with a loud and magnetic personality, is a front-runner in the primary despite never having held or sought Virginia political office before. That said, polls are not predictive and are notoriously off in the spring because no one really knows who is very likely to vote in a rare June gubernatorial Democratic primary with perhaps only 5 to 7 percent of the state’s registered voters participating. Most voters have given Nov. 3 little thought.

      McDonnell leads all three Democrats in recent polling for hypothetical Nov. 3 matchups, but Mary Sue Terry and Jerry Kilgore, who also ran for governor of Virginia after winning attorney general elections, can testify to the reversible nature of leads in early polls. 

      McDonnell, who is unopposed for the GOP nomination, has been sidling over toward the middle of the Virginia electorate from his former position on the right. McDonnell, like McAuliffe, Deeds and Moran, will be casting himself as a nice guy with a lot of leadership skills. Each will seek to cast himself as a jobs-creating governor.

      As the money piles up in the governor’s race and in legislative contests viewed as competitive, let’s hope that many people follow the money. Neither party is being given lots of money to shrink government, so let the bloggers, the reporters and the interested public see who is trying to help or influence whom.